Dream Time With Liz Larin
Jam Rag - Detroit's Music Magazine
June 13th, 2005DREAM TIME WITH LIZ LARIN
Interview by Allen Salyer
Musicians are always leaving Detroit to try and find their big break in Los Angeles or New York, Chicago or Europe. But few come back to Detroit to reconnect with the people and the music. One is Liz Larin who, in my opinion, is the best and the brightest songwriter, vocalist and guitarist all in one soul. If words were made of metal, she would be a gifted craftswoman, wordsmith creating objects of beauty.
Recently I met Liz Larin at D’Amato’s restaurant in downtown Royal Oak. Sitting at a table by the window watching trains pass, Liz had some tasty salmon and a salad as I guzzled gallons of iced tea and snacked on garlic bread while we talked about her new CD, “Wake Up, Start Dreaming.”
Larin began her music career early. “I started writing music when I was ten. I felt the need to communicate early.” By age 15 she was already performing her own brand of rock n’ roll, and soon after answered the call to go to California to seek fame and fortune.
She managed to sign with Atlantic Records and stayed in Los Angeles for a number of years, but found herself yearning to return to Michigan, if only to get back to reality instead of dealing with the falseness that is L.A.
I’ve done the L.A. and I’ve done New York. I’ve done Chicago. I’m glad to have done them. And I’m glad to be back in Detroit. There is no bullshit here. In Detroit one can start up a conversation about the music at a show. In L.A. they look at you like, ‘Why are you talking to me? What’s in this for me?’
“I got tired of hearing there was no money and no credit and that all that would come next time.” Okay, I could see not sharing the money, but I though sharing the credit wouldn’t be a problem. “No, no…” says Larin, “they need every little crumb of credit to bolster their stature. If you share the credit and go before a producer, the producer is going to ask you to come back with your partner and no one wants to risk being turned away.”
Having returned to Detroit five years ago, Larin started her own independent record label, Bona Dea Music (named after the Roman fertility goddess), on which she released MERRY WICKED in 1999 and THE STORY OF O-MIZ in 2003. THE STORY OF O-MIZ garnered Larin and slew of critical acclaim and ten Detroit Music Award nominations in 2004, of which she won six.
I asked Larin is she was disappointed that she was only nominated for one music award this year. “Not at all. I was actually a relief. Being nominated for ten was overwhelming.”
She has moved into a new home complete with a small room that she is converting into a home studio. She is in the process of purchasing all the new recording equipment to be more compatible with professional studios.
Larin is quite computer savvy, I discovered. I read in a recent interview that guitarist Robert Tye credited Larin with introducing him to the use of tape loops for solo performance. She does most of her composing on computer. She even answers all her email personally to stay connected with her fans.
Another thing I like about Larin is her willingness to help. She has performed concerts that benefit Afghan women, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, educating children and fundraisers for this such as the Detroit Music Awards.
Over the last six or eight months I have been fortunate enough to hear the evolution of Larin’s new songs. Initially she introduced the songs in smaller venues where she played solo acoustic gigs. The songs slowly took shape as the melodies were fleshed our and reworked over time. Towards the end of 2004 she began playing them with a full electric band at larger venues. Basic and rough at first, the band members read sheet music on music stands; playing the songs in a straight, deliberate fashion.
As time progressed and the band became comfortable with the songs, they were encouraged to add their own embellishments and sound shapes. Now the songs are fully developed creations with a life and entity of their own.
The main band for her new CD WAKE UP, START DREAMING consists of Roscoe (like Oprah and Madonna, he uses no last name) on guitar, James Simonson on bass and Dave Taylor on drums. Also on the CD are John Dunn on bass, Robert Tye on guitars, as well as Todd Glass on drums. Liz plays electric and acoustic guitars, keyboards and mandolin. While most of the guitar work is played by Roscoe on lead guitar and Larin on rhythm, Robert Tye had some creative input, adding various fills and blends, tweaking things to make them better, so on some songs you hear three guitars.
When Liz is playing solo gigs, she usually plays a handcrafted hollow-body guitar with a built in equalizer given to her as a gift. It was specially designed with Larin’s playing style in mind. “It has a great bottom end,” Larin explains, “that matches the drum and bass loops I use. I like to think of it as an acoustic with a kick.” It is equally fun to watch her play her red electric Fender Stratocaster while performing with the band, as she slowly strums full chord arpeggios by pulling the pick up towards and over her head.
Whereas the theme of Larin’s previous CD was redemption through love, the new CD’s theme is the struggle to bring the unconscious forward. “There has to be more to life than just this, the conscious reality…. art exists in an alternate reality, and it is the artist who brings it into this reality.”
I was fascinated to find our Larin has a real delight for alternative reality horror films like “Nightmare on Elm Street.” Is it a dream or is it real? And how nightmares are our worse fears brought out into the open.
While Larin seems more secure with herself since O-MIZ musically speaking, these songs show a desire to be closer to friends and more connected to relatives. The catchy “Furthest Distant Orbiting Satellite” is a metaphor for her relationship with her father. After leaving home at 16 to tour anywhere and everywhere for a year in big cities and little towns, she kept her father up-to-date via letters. This song always reminds me of my own crappy relationship with my father.
The song “Breathe” talks about a relationship with a close friend with a desire to be more, while “Still” (not on the CD) is a song about a crush and about waiting and yearning.
There is overwhelming water imagery in nearly every song of WAKE UP, START DREAMING, from the positive aspects like the sun setting over the ocean to the comfort of being fully enveloped to suffocation fears. Take the drowning imagery in the lyrics of “Frequency,” for example’ “It’s late at night and I’m swimming in the ocean/And the water is dark and it’s moving all around me/And it’s loving me into it and I’m not afraid/’Cause I’ve got the moon and I’m singing my songs to the moon.” Here her music is her salvation and it makes her fearless.
Does the water imagery come from living in the Great Lakes region or simply Larin’s love for scuba diving? “Underwater, you feel the pulse of the Earth,” Larin says. “Water envelopes you, comforts you. It’s quite sensual. When you are under water your body is near weightlessness. On land there is north, south, east and west, but underwater it’s three-dimensional. You can go in any direction with limitless possibilities. It gives you the same feeling you get when you fly in your dreams.” Even the CD booklet is full of photos of water.
Larin had a CD-naming contest on her website. “Title ideas came from around the world, with lots of great suggestions.” In the end she came up with the title on her own. “It came from here,” she said, touching her heart.
She wrote 23 songs in the past year, ad I asked her about the painful process of cutting the numbers down to 12 for the CD. “I got help with listening parties, with friends, fans, professionals in the music business, composers and other musicians.”
I thought Larin might have chosen the song order based on lyrics but she said it has more to do with the “feel” of the songs. “It’s more like an opera. You start out with a strong song to pull the audience in. Then if they like that you can offer them something deeper. You might take them someplace deeper still, but in the end you close with a balls-out-encore-type-song with lots of guitar.”
Like many of her best songs, the opening track, “Photograph,” is a tense, agitated rocker. The song starts our dark and gray with angry churning guitar then busts open musically with bright vocals that feel like the sun cutting through the clouds. Lyrically, it’s a nostalgic look back matched with a promising future.
It is followed by my favorite song, “Frequency,” in which she shows music’s healing properties, You can feel its vibrations with lyrics like “I’ve got this crystal and I’m holding it in my hand/And there’s a light in the middle and it’s shooting light all around me/On all the wall the most beautiful colors I’ve ever seen/And I feel like I’m leaving my body behind.”
The chorus is full of good advice; “Don’t like what you see/Change your frequency/Don’t like what you hear/The time is coming/The time is coming near.”
Many of her songs reflect personal growth, changes in attitudes, striving to better one’s self. Musically, “Frequency” is full of anxious guitars that create a stop/go, push/pull effect. In the center the music shifts to an ethereal melody with distant vocals crating the illusion that Larin has left this earth spiritually, as she sings, “I’m not here, only light, you’re not here, only light.” Meet me at the corner next to the moon.
The sweet and melodic ballad, “Alive (Conversation With An Angel),” is as much a metaphor for conversation between her and her audience as it is of a human being trying to describe to an ethereal being such as an angel.
Larin once told an audience that she would like to see a portion of that song’s lyrics as her epitaph on her tombstone: “I’m not cruel, no really I’m not/I’m just working hard to untie this knot/The one that keeps me earthbound when I just want to fly.”
“Silence Will Not Save Us Now” reads like a call to arms of some kind. It pretty much says if something bothers you, speak up; “Our silence will not save us now/Open the door and let me breathe somehow/The water is rising coming in over the door/Our silence will not save us now.” It is cleverly written in such a way that the song could endear itself to both liberals and conservatives alike.
“My luck has changed” is the most upbeat song on the CD. “I wrote ‘My Luck Has Changed’ as a way of coaxing great yields from all the seeds that have been planted. If you say something enough, it becomes true. I’ve been singing this song a lot and I swear my luck has improved.” “My Luck Has Changed,” like “Better, Better, Better” (THE STORY OF O-MIZ), starts our dark, in a minor key, then brightens up to major in the sunny chorus, the change of luck reflected in the music. I can see this song becoming a popular hit.
“This Blue Line” is full of heavy, angry, deep chords. The lead guitar solo is full of slow, single notes that hang in the air, building up in tempo and intensity as she sings a call and response with herself. In it Larin’s versatile voice has multiple personalities. She has a deep, serious voice; a husky, sensual voice; a soaring, higher-pitched voice; even a playful, girlish voice, all of which she can use in a solo situation for self-harmonizing.
The funky “You Mistook Me For A Boy” is a favorite with the ladies, garnering screams of excitement from the women in the audience. “We Are Not Strangers Anymore” is a sexy, seductive song from the female perspective, the bluesiest number on the album. Larin’s vocals are cool and smoky as guitar feedback creates a sinister, uneasy feeling. You should hear the song at one of her solo gigs in all its raw, moody splendor.
Larin has recorded a cover songs this time; Led Zeppelin’s “Going To California.” I asked her if it had anything to do with her treck to L.A. and back. “No, I’ve just always liked the song. It’s fun to sing.” This made me curious to know what other music Larin likes. “Classical, jazz, world beat, opera (she recommended Puccini’s “Tosca”) hip hop; it’s the call and response of hip hop; it’s the oldest form of communication. Sometimes language can be limiting whereas music is boundless,” she said, smiling.
Larin has written at least 23 new songs, 12 which appear on WAKE UP, START DREAMING, which means there are still a dozen great songs unrecorded to enjoy live. “Still” is a song about hope for someone who has a crush on another and patiently waits. “My Pacifist Friend” is a tense rocker about a rage-aholic. “Devil You Know” is based on the Irish proverb that the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know. “Save The Wine For Sunday” has a beautiful gospel spiritual feeling to it.
Liz Larin will be performing at Memphis Smoke in Royal Oak on May 13th. Her new CD, WAKE UP, START DREAMING will be available from her web site (www.lizlarin.com) and at the many area shows she plays, including her standing Wednesday night gig at Good Night Gracie in Royal Oak where you can hear her perform covers she doesn’t sing anywhere else.
|
|
|
|
|
